Memorial Day Parade--Saratoga

63/365

A friend and I  drove out to Saratoga this morning to get there in time for the parade.  It was a beautiful morning, cool and clear, and we happily planted ourselves on the shady side of the street.

After leaving the car in the public parking area, we began walking to the main street.  I spied a vanity license plate, and readied the camera to get the image.  Now, today I decided to use the 50D, which I hadn't used in several weeks.  As I pressed the shutter button, there was no reaction to autofocus.  The shutter worked, but no focusing.

Oh.     My.      Goodness!!!

I only had the one camera with me, and there is only one Memorial Day Parade a year.  I switched lenses, thinking maybe the current lens wasn't talking to the camera.  Still no autofocus.  So I resigned myself to manual focus, knowing darned well that my pictures were doomed to be soft, since the last time these old eyes had manually focused was about 15 years ago.  Aaaarrggghhhhh!

Anyway, we continued to the main street, found a good vantage point and waited. 

In the meantime before the parade began, I did some "photo-journalism".  Considering the manual focus, the resulting images aren't too bad.  And it was still fun--that bw function on the camera rocks!!!

After the parade, we decided to walk around and we headed to the park.  After taking a few images with manual focus, I had an epiphany.  I remembered that after my Denali, AK workshop last year, my camera was set to focus with a different button.  Duh!!!  

To say the least, I was very relieved that my camera wouldn't need a trip to the repair shop and that it was just user-error.  

I did, however, put the camera on "color" for a few of the images.  The one below really called to me to be taken in color.

My friend, Jessica, happily posing for me during a break in her shooting.  It was a good day.

Thanks to all the service men and women who have sacrificed their time and lives to keep our country free.